Dibbā () is a coastal area at the northern tip of the eastern Arabian peninsula on the Gulf of Oman.
Political administration
Dibba is politically divided into three segments: Dibba Al-Fujairah, ruled by the Emirate of Fujairah, UAE Dibba Al-Hisn, ruled by the Emirate of Sharjah, UAE Dibba Al-Baya, ruled by the Governorate of Musandam, Oman
History
This large natural harbor on the east coast of the northern Emirates has been an important site of maritime trade and settlement for millennia, with relatively recent excavations underpinning the importance of the town as a site of entrepot trade throughout the Iron Age and into the late pre-Islamic era. A collective tomb, discovered by accident in 2004, led to a number of excavations in the area of the present town which have yielded evidence of a large settlement with layers of occupation and significant finds of trade goods, bitumen, ceramics and glass as well as coins. Three copper alloy tetradrachms were found at the site which, as well as pottery finds, link it to the Hellenistic period at the major pre-Islamic cities of Mleiha and Ed-Dur, while Roman amphorae, ceramics and glass attest to a continuity of not only occupation but a lively regional trade. Finds at the site attest to trade links with Bahrain, north-eastern Arabia, Iran, Mesopotamia and India, while amphorae, terra sigillata, glass and intaglios demonstrate connections between Dibba and the Roman Empire - two intaglios found in the town were engraved with figures of Perseus and Medusa (similar to one found in southern Thailand), further suggesting an extensive pre-Islamic trade network stretching far to the East.
Under the Sasanians, and their clients, the Julanda and Azd, an important market existed at Dibba. The Julanda, reported to the Persian marzban (military governor), based at Al-Rustaq in what is now Oman. According to Ibn Habib, "merchants from Sindh, India, China, people of the East and West came to it."
Battle of Dibba
Soon after the death of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad a rebellion broke out at Dibba and a faction of the Azd, led by Laqit bin Malik Dhu at-Taj, rejected Islam. According to one tradition Laqit was killed by an envoy of the caliph Abu Bakr in what may have been a relatively small struggle, while other sources including al-Tabari say that at least 10,000 rebels were killed in one of the biggest battles of the Ridda wars, the Battle of Dibba. The plain behind Dibba still contains a large cemetery which according to local tradition represents the fallen apostates of Dibba. Thereafter, the region of southeast Arabia became nearly entirely Muslim.
During the time of the Abbasid caliph Al-Mu'tadid (CE 870–892), a great battle was fought at Dibba during the conquest of Oman by the Abbasid governor of Iraq and Bahrain, Muhammad ibn Nur. Thereafter references to Dibba in historical literature are scarce until we come to the Portuguese who built a fortress there. Dibba (Debe) appears in the list of southeast Arabian placenames preserved by the Venetian jeweler Gasparo Balbi in CE 1580 and depictions of its Portuguese fort can be found in several sources, such as Armando Cortesão's Portugaliae Monumenta Cartographica.
Portuguese
Around 1620–1621 the Italian traveler Pietro Della Valle, while staying with the Sultan of Bandar Abbas, met the son of the ruler of Dibba. From this he learned that Dibba had formerly been subject to the Kingdom of Hormuz, but was at that time loyal to the Safavids. In 1623, Safavids sent troops to Dibba, Khor Fakkan and other ports on the south-east coast of Arabia in order to prepare for a Portuguese counter-attack, following their expulsion from Hormuz (Jarun). The Portuguese, under Rui Freire, were so successful that the people of Dibba turned on their Safavid overlords putting them all to death, whereupon a Portuguese garrison of 50 men was installed at Dibba. More Portuguese forces had to be sent to Dibba in 1627 as a result of an Arab revolt. Two years later the Portuguese proposed moving part of the Mandaean population of southern Iraq to Dibba under pressure from neighboring Arab tribes. Although Dibba was offered to the Mandaeans they were wise enough to see that the Portuguese force there would be insufficient to guarantee their security and, while a few Mandaeans tested the waters by moving to Muscat, most returned to Basra in CE 1630.